Drillin'

P.J. was feeling good, had an extra spring in her step and glimmer in her eyes. Being in the country always made her feel both thankful and alive. The early afternoon sunlight warmed her arms and legs, bared to it by the sleeveless, form-fitting t-shirt and shorts. Although she felt great, she considered that the next few days might be like watching paint dry. Being out here in the middle of the East Texas pineywoods babysitting a crew of redneck water-well-drillers could possibly be boring beyond description.

As they drove in, dispersed in three Dodge trucks, P.J. steeled herself for the usual patronizing "yes, ma'ams" that floated effortlessly, probably since birth, from these young men's mouths. For god's sake, they drove Dodges, she sniffed, eyeing with passion her own bright red Ford F-350 dually.

The first young man out she recognized. It was the master-driller to whom she'd spoken the day before, Jimmie Ray. Tall, thin, quiet, he approached P.J. in a kind of sideways motion, tipping the brim of his CAT gimme cap.

"Mornin' ma'am," he drawled. He was silent for half a minute after P.J. returned the salutation. He continued.

"Where d'ya think you want this well? You gonna build somewhere here?"

"Well, yes, I'm thinking of building here within a year or two. The house will probably be right over there," and P.J. pointed to an area that she and her cousin had been clearing over the past few months.

"Well," he drawled. "That's a fur piece from your trailer." He paused, looking from where P.J. had pointed to where the fifth-wheel was parked. Any number of P.J.'s friends from the city would have thought he was talking about some kind of mink jacket. He meant that where she pointed to was quite a distance from the trailer.

"Yes," she replied. "Yes, it is. But I can always have more line run when I finally build. As I said, it'll probably be a while."

She allowed him to take this in before she continued.

"So, can we drill somewhere down this way," she pointed north of where they now stood. "It's a bit out of the way, and I like that . . . if you think it's a suitable site," she deferred to his expertise.

And she didn't doubt the young man's experience. He'd come highly recommended. Both his father and grandfather had been drillers.

"Don't make much difference where we drill around here. Lots of water."

"Well, that's heartening."

"So, over there then," he said as he pointed to where P.J. had just indicated.

"Yes, that'd be good if you think it'll work."

"Yes'm. That's where you want it, that's where we drill it."

And in her brain, as some kind of portent, P.J. repeated his words, "that's where you want it, that's where we drill it." She'd been in a rather lusty mood all day and his words, so ripe with rather randy connotation, seem to conjure some evil sprite within her. As he started to explain the first steps of the process, P.J. watched as behind him the other men were milling around and waiting to get to work. Some were still inside the trucks, and, soon, out of one of them leapt a young man who immediately caught P.J.' s eye and started the evil sprite within to spinning like a top. He was the Homo sapiens version of a Clydesdale--beautiful and sturdy, quite serviceable. He walked with his hands in the pockets of his thin overalls, pulling the already tight canvas material even more tautly over his ample cheeks. P.J.'s eyes involuntarily followed the young man's form as he sauntered down to the lake's edge to determine placement of the large hose that would run water up to the drilling rig.

As P.J. watched him walk by, she caught herself openly gaping at the first full sight of his behind. "Good, god," she thought. "Would I ever love to dig my fingers into those ass cheeks!" This would be no easy task, she mused. The young man had the highest, shapeliest, hardest-looking butt she'd ever seen. Each cheek was perfectly molded and large. The young man was built low to the ground--his powerful, muscular legs reminded P.J. of tree trunks. Well, she giggled to herself, he'd have to have sturdy limbs to hold up that massive butt. A quarter inch shorter or taller in height would have marred the unholy symmetry of his shape. She wondered what might be on the front side of the butt, but figured it wouldn't really matter that much since she'd be reveling in the backside if given an opportunity.

The driller was still speaking to P.J., but she hadn't heard all he'd said. Finally, as his voice grew purposely louder, P.J. turned her attention to him and answered more particular questions about placement of the well and other pertinent things.

"We'll get started right away. Shouldn't take more than three days," he explained. "Shouldn't have to drill more than two-hundred forty, two-hundred seventy feet."

What a shame, P.J. silently thought to herself, I thought this was going to be bad, but I could watch this kid, her eyes went back to the Clydesdale, for more than three days, for sure.

As P.J. walked back to the trailer, lost in thoughts of the red-haired Clydesdale, she was unaware ten pairs of eyes were riveted on her own shapely bottom. Jimmie Ray thought to himself that it was just as well that she was going, apparently, inside. Keep the guys' minds on their work.

P.J. climbed the three steps, entered the trailer, and settled herself inside the chair near the large window. She had an excellent view of the crew. Equipment was driven in--the drilling rig itself, a flatbed trailer filled with steel and PVC pipe and various utility items, and another on whose surface rode a backhoe. Because the near two-mile sandy dirt road was not always easily passable, they'd elected to leave the flatbed trailers and the drilling rig near the FM road until they'd determined the condition of the sandy one.

Little Red, as P.J. had now named the young man, jumped up and down and around as the tasks dictated. He wore tight white carpenter overalls and a white long sleeved t-shirt with the sleeves pushed up to reveal powerful forearms covered in golden red hair. On his head, the golden red hair was cropped close but with enough length to reflect the gold flecks in the hair in the sunlight. If he had freckles it wasn't obvious, for the young man was so evenly bronzed that any freckles would have been obscured. She had yet to get a really close look at his face, especially now that all the crew had donned their hard hats.

This first day, half-day really, was one of preparation. The men scurried around, running the hose from the drilling site down to the lake and attaching it to the Honda generator which would pump the lake water up to the rig. Others pulled lengths of pipe from the trailer and carried them to the drilling site. Still others moved equipment into various places, preparing for the day ahead.

As the master-driller ambled up to the trailer, P.J. intercepted him, opening the door and stepping out.

"We gotta run the 'lectricity down where you want the pump. Gonna dig a trench first though. Any place you don't want us to dig?"

P.J. stepped down, closed the door behind her, and followed the driller around to the end of the trailer.

"Well," she said, "I suppose the straightest course would be the best. There's nothing underground between here and there. Just do it the shortest way. Make it easy."

"Yes, ma'am. Sounds good." A pause. "I won't do the 'lectricity 'til tomorrow, but we'll get everything else ready today."

And with that, he touched his cap and moseyed away.

P.J. had expected a ditchwitch to appear from somewhere amid all the machinery. Surely they had one on one of those trailers. But no ditchwitch. Suddenly, Mr. Master-Driller Jimmie Ray was directing Little Red, pointing from the utility pole to back where they now stood. As he grabbed a shovel from one of the flatbed trailers, P.J. now understood that Little Red was going to dig the trench by hand. Oh, my god. It was a good seventy-five feet from the pole to the area where the pump was going in.

She started walking quickly towards Jimmie Ray who, as he caught side of her coming his way, turned and headed back towards her.

She knew her look was incredulous as she asked the question.

"He's going to dig the trench by hand," and her voice went up as she emphasized the word "hand."

"Why, yes, ma'am. It's soft sand. Won't be much to the diggin'. Just rained yestiddy."

P.J. shook her head in astonishment. She hadn't been thinking about the sand as much as she'd been thinking about the distance and the sheer physical exertion of wielding a shovel for that length of time. She returned to her perch in the trailer's large window.

The next hour saw P.J.'s inner-sprite move from mild excitement to a feverish pitch as she watched the young man work his way methodically up to the window where she sat. Stand up, foot on shovel, push into sand, bend, scoop, dump, and stand again. She became so mesmerized by the predictable motion that she found herself rocking in time with it. She also rocked for other reasons. She noticed it was getting warmer and warmer inside the trailer.

The afternoon passed too quickly. Shortly after Little Red had finished the trench, Jimmie signaled to all that it was time to go. He made his way up to the trailer's door where P.J. met him.

"Back in the mornin'," her drawled. "Get an early start."

And they were, in moments, gone, the sound of the diesel engines fading as they neared the paved road.

But the evil sprite remained, and P.J. spent the evening and too much of the night trying to make it go away.

***

Saturday morning, Little Red was wearing pale blue overalls, again not denim but a smoother, lighter sheeting material, and a white t-shirt. If possible, these overalls fit more snugly than yesterday's. The material was thinner and the perfect globes of Little Red's ass tightly bounced. Literally fuckin' bounced, P.J. marveled, as he walked.

Today, the actual drilling began, and P.J. watched, fascinated, as the process developed. When the steel pipes had been buried to a certain length, drilling would cease and more pipe would be added. P.J. couldn't tell exactly how it was done, but it appeared that some kind of metal collar was used to thread on to the pipe lengths and put them together.

From time to time, Jimmie Ray would closely inspect some of the core material brought up from underground. He'd smell it, rub it between his fingers, and one time, P.J. swore, he actually tasted it. It wasn't long after lunch on Saturday that he came to the trailer to tell her that they'd hit water much earlier than he'd expected--about a hundred sixty feet. But he wanted to go down a bit more to make sure they got good water. And the drilling continued.

P.J. gaped at Red as he used his animal strength to tighten the collar on the pipe before it descended again, longer now, into the sandy soil. As he grabbed the pipe, P.J. had an excellent view of his backside, the power of his thighs, back, and arms. She wasn't sure what to do with her pent up energy, but the evil sprite had been doing a full-fledged Riverdance in her brain for many hours before she finally decided she'd better put the energy to use and went outside and climbed on the riding mower.

When the crew finally took an afternoon break, P.J. was glad to see Little Red head down to the lake's edge to check the generator and the hose. She stopped the lawn tractor, got off, and nonchalantly followed him.

What the hell, she asked herself. Life's good. Short, too. You want 'im, just go for it. Put the line out. See if he's bitin'.

He felt her come up behind him. And smelled her. He hadn't been close to her today, so he was just now getting a whiff of the perfume. But he, and the others, had taken advantage of their eyesight frequently since arriving this morning. She'd been riding the lawnmower, and the uneven terrain had made her breasts bounce, to Little Red's mind at least, infernally. They were the kind he liked--not too small, not too large, round and seemingly firm.

As he turned around, P.J. stopped her forward approach, smiled, and asked her opening question.

"What do people do for entertainment around here," she inquired of Little Red.

"En-ter-tai-un-ment," he asked, drawing the word out to five syllables. "You mean whadda we do for fun?"

"Why, yes, that's exactly what I mean. Where might you go to entertain yourselves?

"Hmmm," he mused, stroking his chin before continuing. "Well, prah-bly T's Club over to Shebbyville."

What the young man meant was an establishment in Shelbyville, but he pronounced it in the local fashion, to Shebbyville.

Little Red eyed her for a moment, excused himself, then turned and completed his current task. But the way he had eyed her made P.J. think she might head the other red male in her life, her truck, out to Shelbyville tonight. And the sprite broke into an absolute jig. She returned up the incline and decided on a glass of iced tea. She'd offered tea to the workers earlier, but Jimmie motioned her over to one of the trucks and lifted the lid on a huge ice chest revealing bottles of water and a half-dozen or more kinds of canned drinks, including iced tea.

"Thanks anyway," he'd said. Now, she definitely felt the need to cool her insides.

P.J. sought shelter, both from the sun and her increasing excitement, by pulling a chair under the shade of a huge sweetgum tree and slowly sipping the cold tea. Little Red was apparently hot as well, for she saw him slug down two cans of something in what seemed only a couple of gulps.

Before they packed up for the evening, the head driller came to tell P.J. that they'd return tomorrow. She was a bit surprised since tomorrow was Sunday. He explained that they had a big job on Tuesday and wanted to make sure they were through here in plenty of time. Surprises sometimes happened, he'd said. He added that they wouldn't be early in the morning, probably around 10:00 o'clock, and projected that they'd be through by early afternoon.

She nodded assent and said she'd see them in the morning.

The trucks fired up, the purr, at least to her ears, of the diesel engines resounding in the usually quiet woods. The truck driven by the master-driller pulled out first. A moment or two later, a second one followed. The third truck idled, then slowly pulled up closer to where P.J. stood in the shade. Little Red rolled down the passenger side window and leaned his forearm on the truck.

"Know where Shebbyville is?"

"Yep," P.J. replied.

"Welp, we'll be there this evenin'. At T's. Y'know. Case you wanna come."

"Well," P.J. waited before finishing her thought. "Maybe I'll see ya there."

"Yes, ma'am."

And with that the window rolled up and the truck rolled out.

***

P.J. determined on the short skirt, but eschewed the low-cut blouse. The long-sleeved t-shirt, fairly snug, would do nicely. She looked rather like a toy person, a doll, in relation to the big truck she crawled into. The drive to Shelbyville was about half an hour. She popped a Lucinda Williams CD into the player and screamed "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" along with Lucinda, repeating the same song all the way to T's, a private club not hard to find since the whole town of Shelbyville consisted of two major streets and only a dozen or so minor ones. She hadn't even had to ask anyone. The parked vehicles in a large parking lot led her the way.

When she pulled in, the lot was jammed, not surprising since T's shared the parking space with the all-you-can-eat-catfish restaurant next door. In fact, the lot wound its way behind the buildings and it seemed that nearly every space was taken. She had to park pretty far away, a bit worried about leaving Big Red so far from the front door. She laughed at herself when she looked around and counted no less than forty similar trucks within a stone's throw.

She jumped down out of the truck and made her way to the front door of the club. A group of men idled on the porch that stretched the width of the building, sucking in their collective breath as P.J. approached them.

As she slowly climbed the five steps, the three men wearing cowboy hats slowly put their fingertips to their hat brims. Quite a compliment to an old woman, P.J. thought. She smiled broadly and offered a "good evening, gentlemen," and again the sprite danced to her inner tune.

"Evenin', ma'am," came responses from all around.

It was dark, noisy, and smoky inside. P.J. made her way to the bar in an effort to locate either Little Red or some of the men from the crew. Finally, beer in hand, P.J. spotted Little Red on the other side of the room moving around in a collection of mostly-western attired young men, two of whom she recognized from the crew.

Little Red, too, had followed the uniform code of the evening. He wore starched and creased Wranglers, she wondered to herself where he'd gotten a pair to fit that body, and a crisp white shirt, no hat. The red hair glowed when he stepped under various faint spotlights located around the dimly-lit room.

It wasn't long, a buzz seemed to have accompanied her arrival, before Little Red headed her way. He wasn't shy. He wasn't cocky. He simply wanted to have a good time. They made small talk over the fairly loud music and finished their beers. Then, hand outstretched, Little Red asked P.J. to dance.

And around they went, two-stepping along with the rest of the crowd, laughing and enjoying the band and each other, eventually falling into a comfortable pattern. Four songs later, Little Red asked if she wanted another beer. P.J. nodded yes, then managed to communicate that she was headed to the ladies' room and would be right back.

The restrooms were located down a long wooden hallway at the back of the building. P.J. smiled wryly as she read "Dude-ettes" on the ladies' room door. Hmmm, she thought to herself, it certainly was not as insulting as the designation of "Sluts" in a Los Angeles nightclub she'd once visited. She went in and relieved herself, checking her reflection in the mirror before returning to the melee outside. Her face was pleasantly flushed, and the sprite was apparently attempting a getaway through her sparkling eyes. She was having fun. More fun than she'd had in a while.

He met her in the hall. Just enough beer to make him lose what little inhibition he exhibited around the older woman. He stood in front of P.J., smiling down at her. Although he wasn't tall, perhaps 5'8" or so, he was taller than her 5'3" frame. He lightly pushed her back to the wall and leaned into her, placing a surprisingly good kiss on her lips. She returned the kiss, increasing its fervor as he pressed into her with more of his weight.

In less than two minutes, P.J.'s hand tucked into Little Red's, they headed out the exit door at the end of the restroom hallway. Exit Only -- No Entrance, the sign on the door read. Moments later they were in Little Red's vehicle, not a truck, parked in the lot at the back of the building. Must've been Daddy's old car. And a fine one it was, too. The 1970 Roadrunner had an ample backseat area.

P.J. practically broke into girlish laughter as Red gallantly opened the backdoor and swept his hand before him in a gesture of invitation. She crawled in, Red right behind her. As they settled down, each near one of the corners of the backseat, P.J. realized that Little Red smelled very good. He did not smell of pine, not of English Leather or Brut. In fact, he smelled of Dolce & Gabbana, the cologne that many of her male students back in fashion-conscious Big D wore. Suddenly, she wanted to know Little Red's real name.

"What's your name?" she asked. "I'm P.J."

"Yes, ma'am. I know." He paused. "Don't laugh at mine, okay?" he asked defensively.

"Of course I won't laugh. Go ahead. Tell me."

"Well, I'm named after my grandfathers. All four of them. My full name is Archibald Jackson Caleb David McNeff." He eyed her for a response when he finished.